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Birth Story During Lockdown

8thMay2020

Here is a birth story sent to us by a couple who we supported recently. As you see, babies are born happily throughout this time and hospital midwives are trying to make the experience as safe and memorable as possible.

“At the start of the year we contacted Annabel and Suzanne ahead of the birth of our second child in April 2020. Having had a long and slightly stressful first birth, we were keen to get extra support principally for the birth and then for the initial postnatal period. From the moment we met them in February their experience shone through – but we didn’t know then just how much we would come to value this.

As we approached the birth, the situation with the coronavirus pandemic and UK lockdown became increasingly worrying. But they created a plan to make us feel calm and confident during what was a very uncertain time.
Their experience and knowledge was invaluable – Annabel’s in terms of preparing for the actual birth and Suzanne’s in the postnatal period. Annabel phoned on a regular basis and every time we spoke her calm, practical advice lifted any stress we had. The plan we made for when labour started gave us something we could focus on and removed the anxiety we felt about the hospital situation. She told us how she thought it would play out – we would go to the hospital and sit outside together for as long as possible, then my husband and I would go in and the baby would arrive soon after – and this is exactly what happened! In comparison to my first baby, the birth couldn’t have been more different – we were in and out of the hospital within 8hrs, back in time for lunch with our 2yr old.
Suzanne’s presence post birth was equally invaluable, especially given there were to be no home midwife visits and we weren’t able to see any family members. Her vast experience meant she was able to answer any questions we had and offer advice on all areas of newborn life – feeding, sleeping, settling, etc. – as well as providing reassurance and support during the early days.
Not only did we find them to be extremely knowledgeable and calm (quite something given the circumstances!) but both are also enormously caring and kind – characteristics which we valued, whether in the midst of a pandemic or not.
We couldn’t recommend them more highly – and will be forever grateful to them both.”